The next Rocketeer mini-series after Cargo of Doom, Hollywood Horror focused a little less on the pulp aspects of the character, and more on the specific time and location (Hollywood in the late-30s/early-'40s.)
Betty's roommate, a reporter named Dahlia Danvers, goes missing, but not before calling Betty to alert her to the location of Dahlia's notes. As she never finishes telling Betty what to do with the notes, Betty opts to investigate what a missing scientist and a "spiritualist" named Otto Rune have to do with each other.
Cliff is, for a while, barely involved in this. Doc Savage sent his two guys to pick up the rocket for some tests. Cliff refused and bolted, so at a point when he's exhausted and waterlogged after crashlanding in the reservoir while keeping the dam from being sabotaged, they take it by force. Also, Betty is kind of cheesed off at him, not over an argument about him being the Rocketeer, but because she proposed helping him fight crime, and he forbid her from doing that.
Yes, he actually used the word "forbid." It's amazing so many people can punch Cliff in the mouth with his foot always in the way.
Langridge and J Bone pepper the story with characters from both fiction and real life. Cliff runs into a guy on the first page, dropping his wallet in the process. The guy, who narrates the story, turns out to be Groucho Marx in everyday wear (no cigar, no big mustache, no glasses, etc.) Nick and Nora Charles (The Thin Man) are also investigating the disappearance of the scientist (who J Bone draws a bit like Einstein, though that just may be generic coding for "scientist" as much as anything.) I don't know that recognizing them does anything for the overall enjoyment of the mini-series - I didn't know that guy was Groucho until the book was almost over - but I assume Langridge and Bone found it amusing, and it doesn't detract from things.
The scientist's disappearance and Otto Rune turn out to be connected in what's ultimately a scam with potentially dangerous consequences. Like blowing up dams to convince people catastrophes are nigh, and if you want to live, put a dollar in the box! Betty turns out to not be very good at undercover work (sorry, we aren't accepting innuendo at this time), and Cliff has to get by for a time with a rocketpack Peevy built, mostly useful as a battering ram, since Peevy doesn't have access to the same lightweight materials as Doc Savage. And Peevy still thinks Howard Hughes built the rocket, until Savage shows up at the very end, looking to come to an understanding about the rocket.
I did buy the mini-series after this, a team-up with the Spirit. But I didn't find the Spirit added much to my enjoyment, so it was long ago excised from the collection. There was at least one more anthology mini-series, but it's long gone, too. At one time there was going to be a mini-series (drawn by Javier Pulido) set in the present day, with a young woman as the new Rocketeer. But it never appeared, so here we'll leave the Rocketeer.
No comments:
Post a Comment